How are we doing? October 2014

This is the last issue of the year, and the Transactions is making great strides to improve the publication timelines. We are in the process of upgrading the web review system to incorporate processing manuscripts post acceptance. This will provide a convenient portal for Rita Janssen, our industrious adminstrative editor, and authors to remain in communication through the entire process up to publication. Furthermore, the system should enable rapid posting of the manuscripts onto Xplore, which is an enhancement that many students and junior faculty will appreciate. The rapid post will be considered a "publication" even though all the editing and typesetting is not complete. For the researcher, this will mean that credit for your work will be given earlier. And for the editorial board, this will mean that our time from manuscript submission to publication should be reduced by about 6 months. This enhanced web review system will also allow us to perpetually archive all files related to a published paper in one location. We hope that this upgrade goes live by February 2015.